


Ashes to Ashes

by PR Zed (przed)



Series: Das Vadanya Tovarishch [5]
Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 14:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/przed/pseuds/PR%20Zed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A loss in the UNCLE organization has both Illya and Napoleon contemplating the rift between them once again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes to Ashes

_Tuesday, September 30, 1975_

It was a chilling sound.

The general alert klaxon in the New York office of U.N.C.L.E. hardly ever sounded, and only when there was a dire emergency, when Thrush was attacking.

It was sounding now.

Napoleon Solo had been sitting at his desk, going through the field reports of the Enforcement team, idly wishing he was still in a position to take such an active part in the organization. He was signing the report of one of the junior teams when the klaxon sounded.

And somehow he knew.

Knew that this wasn't a Thrush attack, a breech of the building, a physical threat to the inhabitants. He knew in his gut, in the marrow of his bones, that this time the alarm was sounding for Alexander Waverly.

In spite of his training, his experience, he still froze. It was as if he didn't want his fears confirmed. But the freeze only lasted a second, and then he was on his feet, heading for Waverly's office. The trip from his office to Waverly's was only a few hundred meters, but it seemed to take forever. And at the end of the trip, he found Lisa Rogers, standing in the middle of the room, looking more bereft than he'd ever seen her before. 

"Where is he?" he asked.

"Conference room three."

Napoleon was out the door in an instant.

"He was meeting with the Research department," Lisa yelled after him.

He ran down more hallways, twisting and turning, avoiding other agents and personnel with the same haunted expression that he must be wearing himself. Finally, he came to the conference room in question. There, he found Rachel Tovim and what looked like her entire medical team at work on a figure lying at the back of the room. The head of Research stood with his team against one wall. Napoleon took a deep breath to calm himself, then approached the Research team.

"Boris, what happened?"

Boris Isgur was a gangly dark haired man in his forties who always managed to look ten years younger than he was. Now he looked as if he'd aged all those lost years in the last five minutes. Isgur opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Napoleon could see the man's skin going grey as he watched and recognized the signs of shock. He sat Isgur down in a chair, got his head down and sent a member of his staff off to find water and a blanket. He then called Operations centre and authorized the shut down of the damned klaxon that was still sounding its doom throughout the whole building.

The resulting silence was nearly as bad as the siren had been. Now Napoleon could hear his own breath, could hear the instructions of Tovim as she directed her medical team, could hear the sound of the defibrillator.

He shook himself, and forced his attention back to Isgur, who, fortified by the blanket and cup of tea one of his people had produced, was beginning to look human again.

"I'm sorry, Napoleon. I don't know what came over me."

"Don't worry about it, Boris," Napoleon cut off his apologies. "Just tell me what happened."

"We were having our monthly meeting. I was outlining some new forensics tests we'd been developing when Mr. Waverly collapsed. We sounded the alarm and called the medical department." Isgur stopped at looked over to where Waverly lay. "Is he going to be okay?"

"I don't know, Boris. I really don't know."

He got the Research team to bundle their boss out of the room, after satisfying them all that they had done everything they could. Only then did he allow himself to look back at the hub of activity in the room.

He was struck by how small Waverly looked, surrounded as he was by so much equipment and so many people. He was also surprised to realize how frail Waverly had become and wondered how his ribs were surviving the compressions being delivered by the resuscitation team. He started holding his own breath in sympathy with his mentor. His chest began to burn as the seconds stretched out before him and his lungs demanded oxygen. Then, finally, as Napoleon was forced to take a breath himself, he heard the welcome beep of the heart monitor, indicating that Waverly's heart was beating on its own.

Napoleon felt his own tension ease until he looked at the medical team and saw no such relief mirrored in their faces. And in that second, he realized that he was witnessing the end of an era, that nothing would ever be quite the same again.

He hung back as Waverly was bundled onto a stretcher and taken from the room. Most of the medical staff left with Waverly, but Rachel Tovim stayed behind.

"How is he, Rachel?"

She shook her head. "Not good."

"But he's breathing on his own. His heart's beating."

"That's not the whole story, Napoleon." She ran her had through her hair. "We worked on him for nearly ten minutes before he responded. And he wasn't breathing for close to a minute before we got here. He could have suffered brain damage, or his heart could be too scarred or his lungs could fail."

She stopped talking, took a deep breath and then said the one thing that he didn't really want to hear, that he had somehow hoped to avoid, even though he had worked for it these last three years and more.

"You're in charge now, Napoleon."

He felt his back straighten automatically, even as he fought not to recoil. "Is that necessary?"

Rachel held his gaze, her dark eyes not letting his escape for an instant. "Waverly is nearly ninety, Napoleon. It's something of a miracle that he's been as healthy as he has, for as long as he has. But that's over. Even if he recovers from this heart attack, and it's by no means sure that he will, he won't be able to work again."

Napoleon could feel the blood leave his head, could see Rachel looking at him with concern.

"Are you okay, Napoleon?"

Well, if he was to take over Waverly's role, it was time he started acting it. He stood up fully and forced what he hoped was a commanding expression on his face.

"Of course, I'm okay, Rachel." He pasted a wan smile on his face that he hoped hid his own unease. "I'm always okay."

"Ah, yes. The patented Solo overcompensation. I'd almost forgotten about it."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Rachel." 

"Of course not," she said, patting him on the shoulder as she moved toward the door. "I need to get back to my patient."

"I'll need regular updates," Napoleon said. His medical officer waved her acknowledgment and was gone.

Napoleon allowed himself only a few seconds of stillness, a few moments in which to process the monumental change that had just happened.

Then he took a deep breath and prepared to do his job.

* * *

Somehow, it was a phone call he had never anticipated receiving.

He was at his desk, having just finished his afternoon office hours, when the phone rang. He sighed, expecting it to be yet another undergraduate begging for an extension on the latest problem set, and picked up the receiver.

"Hello."

"Illya?" The voice at the other end was female and very upset.

"April?"

"Oh, Illya." April's voice broke and he could hear her sniff loudly.

He felt an icy hand grip at his entrails.

"What's wrong?"

"He's dead."

If he hadn't already been sitting down, he would have collapsed at that. He could feel his bones turn to jelly, his hand develop a slight shake.

"Napoleon," he whispered. Then louder, "Is it Napoleon?"

"No, not Napoleon." She sniffed again and gave a little hiccough. "Waverly."

Illya's first reaction was relief. Relief that it was not Napoleon who had been irrevocably taken from him. After came shame at his callousness. Then disbelief.

"How?" he asked, struggling with the numbness that overtook his limbs, his head, his mind.

"Heart attack." April took in a great gulp of air and then seemed to get a certain amount of control. "He was in a meeting with the head of Research and collapsed. He never regained consciousness."

"Oh." Illya knew he should say more, but he felt incapable, drowned by the enormity of the news. Alexander Waverly was a permanent fixture, a geological force. He had helped found the Command. It was impossible that he would no longer be around to lead it, that he had simply ceased to exist.

"Illya, are you there?"

He shook himself, wondering how much time he had lost. "I'm sorry, April. What did you say?"

"I asked if you are coming to the funeral."

"Of course," he said, no thought required to make that decision. The man had been a mentor to him, as much as to Napoleon. Even though he hadn't seen Waverly since shortly after his resignation, he still had to pay his respects.

"And of course you'll stay with me. Or Mark."

As quickly as that, Illya changed from a mild-mannered physics professor in mourning for a respected superior into a highly trained agent intent on evading notice.

"No," he said sharply. "I'll find my own accommodations."

"You should be with friends. We all should. And now, more than ever, you should see Napoleon."

"Now, more than ever, I should not see Napoleon. He will be in charge now. He doesn't need any emotional distractions."

"Illya," April said, exasperation overcoming the grief in her voice, "you can't still think that you've done the right thing."

"Now I know I've done the right thing." He felt his hand tightening on the receiver till the knuckles whitened. "Waverly is gone and Napoleon will take over. Because I left, April. Because I am no longer there, Napoleon will be the one in charge of New York. If I was still there, they wouldn't have let him near that position. And we both know that there isn't anyone better suited to the job."

It was an old argument, the one thing that neither could get past, neither would surrender. For a long minute, the only thing Illya could hear was the sound of the static on the phone, the faint puffs of April's breath and his own heart pounding in his ears. Just as he was becoming convinced that he was going to have to hang up with this rift still between them, he heard April let out a giant sigh.

"I don't want to fight, Illya. Not now."

"Neither do I. Please, just let it drop." 

"Fine," she said, though they both knew that it wasn't. "But you will get in touch with us? With Mark and me? Even just a phone call."

He could surrender that far.

"Yes. I promise."

"Break that promise and I'll come to Wisconsin and tell your students what a teddy bear you really are."

"We simply can't have that," he said, mock horror in his voice.

"The funeral's in three days."

"I'll be there."

"Take care, Illya," she said, then hung up before he could respond.

He replaced the receiver in its cradle, then sat, staring at the phone as though it were a poisonous creature, waiting to strike him down.

He didn't cry. He hadn't done that for a very long time. But he did let himself feel the grief. And he chided himself for the surprise he still felt at this news. After all, Waverly was an old man, had been getting frail even before Illya had left the Command. Intellectually, he had known that this day must come. Emotionally, though . . . that was the problem, wasn't it? Emotionally, he had been convinced that the Old Man would somehow manage to live forever.

He sat until he felt the weakness leave his body, until the fine tremors in his hand had calmed.

When he finally felt, if not quite normal then able to function, he went to work. He called his department head to ask for time off. He called his graduate students to have them to cover his classes. And he called his contacts in New York--the ones not associated with U.N.C.L.E., the ones not even Napoleon knew aboutóand arranged for a place to stay in the city where no one would be able to find him, unless he wanted to be found.

And throughout it all, he deluded himself that he was not thinking of Napoleon at all. Not one little bit.

* * *

_Friday, October 3, 1975_

For Napoleon, the next few days passed by in a blur of preparations. He had to plan the funeral, arrange the time, the place, the guest list, the security, the flowers and a host of other details. He didn't mind. It kept him from thinking about what it all meant. Kept him from realizing that it was his mentor who was housed in the ornate pine box at the front of the church. Kept him from realizing that the safe-keeping of U.N.C.L.E. in North America had now passed to him.

The main eulogy was delivered by a peer of Waverly's from British intelligence. Several others spoke during the service: diplomats, politicians, spymasters. Maude Waverly added a personal note to the proceedings. They had all asked Napoleon to say a few words, but he had declined. He had no words left, only a creeping numbness that seemed to have frozen both body and emotions.

So, he sat stiffly during the funeral, keeping an eye out for Thrush assassins and a flash of blond hair. Thrush had only made an appearance in the form of an intensely scrutinized Victor Marton, paying his respects to an esteemed adversary. And he had never seen quite the shade of blond he was looking for.

He wondered if Illya even knew that Waverly was dead, if someone knew how to contact him. And he wished, for the millionth time in the past three years, that he had his partner at his side. But wishes were not horses, beggars did not ride, and there were no Russian expatriate former spies in attendance at the funeral.

Still, there had been one moment at the end of the ceremony when his instinct deceived him, when he thought that Illya had managed to make his way to St. John's Cathedral for the ceremony. It was at the end of the service, when everyone was filing out of the church. Napoleon felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and known he was being observed. He whirled on his heel, unreasoning instinct telling him that it was Illya Kuryakin who had so raised his defenses. Instinct was wrong. His partner was been behind him, only an endless stream of functionaries and agents. Napoleon pushed back into the crowd, nearly treading on a homburg-clad manóhe must be from Research, Napoleon thought in passingósearching for the one person he most desperately wanted to see, and the one person who most emphatically wasn't there. 

He allowed himself to flow with the crowd, out of the building, and found himself standing on the steps, nodding automatically as Enforcement agents and heads of state alike offered their condolences. 

He knew it would get easier, but right now, he didn't want any of this. He didn't want to be head of U.N.C.L.E. North America. He didn't want to be responsible for the lives of the young men and women who worked for him and the Command. He didn't want to know presidents and princes.

All he did want was Alexander Waverly alive. He wanted to return to the days when he was only the Chief Enforcement Agent. He wanted his partner by his side and in his home and in his bed.

And he could have none of that. 

* * *

Illya entered the small room he'd rented, carefully hung up the battered hat and sat down heavily in the room's lone chair.

It had been the hardest thing he had ever done.

Harder than staying cool in a fire fight; harder than surviving torture. Harder, even, than defending his doctoral dissertation in front of a panel of dour Cambridge physicists.

Sitting in St. John's Cathedral, attending the funeral of a man he had respected, surrounded by former colleagues and friends that he could not acknowledge, had taxed even the considerable self-control of Illya Kuryakin. But that had not been the worst thing.

The worst moment had come at the end of the service, as the throng was leaving the church. By an egregious miscalculation, he had ended up being pushed nearly into Napoleon Solo. And by some instinct, Napoleon had known that his partner was in the crowd. No sooner had Illya realized whom he was behind then he had seen the muscles in Napoleon's back stiffen with tension. Without thought, his own instincts had kicked in. He had stepped back and pulled the hat firmly over his eyes by the time Napoleon had whirled around. He had forced himself to look down and keep moving forward, even as Napoleon had pushed into the crowd, no doubt searching for blond hair and a black turtleneck. He was lucky his partner had not seen past the shabby suit and dark brown wig.

Luck.

Napoleon had always carried the luck of their partnership; Illya wondered who held it now. Wondered if it really had been luck that had kept Napoleon from seeing who he really was, or a complete absence of luck for both of them.

He wondered what would have happened if he had given into temptation and seized Napoleon's arm, crushed him in an embrace that would have driven the breath out of both of them.

Of course, he didn't have to wonder. He knew what would have happened if he'd taken that path. Knew that Napoleon would not have been allowed to take over Waverly's position, would have come to resent him, to hate him. Illya could have tolerated Napoleon being denied his calling even less than he could have endured his hatred.

He frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly wishing that this trip was over and done with, wishing that he was back in Madison. He would rather be teaching an infuriatingly dense group of undergrads than back in this city.

But he couldn't leave, at least not yet. He had one last promise he had to keep before he could turn his back on New York for good.

Sighing, he picked up the phone and began to dial.

* * *

_Saturday, October 4, 1975_

Napoleon Solo, North American Continental Chief of the U.N.C.L.E., sat at the desk in his office and considered his position.

His office. He rolled the phrase around a few times, but it still felt foreign, wrong. The desk, the office could only belong to Alexander Waverly. Napoleon felt like an impostor, the squire asked to rule in place of the king.

Taking possession of the office had been bad enough, but he had one last task to perform that was even worse: he had to sort through Waverly's things, send his personal effects back to his family, and make sure he knew the contents of any private files the Old Man might have left.

Even the thought of doing this felt like a violation, felt like he was eradicating the last traces of his mentor from the Command. And yet it was a necessary process. He recognized that. Knew that they all had to accept the changing of the guard.

None of which made the job any easier.

Sighing, he stood up, took off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. It was going to be a long day.

Eleven hours later, he was nearly done with the job. And nearly done in himself.

He had boxed up all of Waverly's personal things and had them sent to Maude Waverly. He had read every file in the office, sending the old ones to the archives, placing the relevant ones in his new filing system. The only thing that he hadn't yet tackled was the safe.

The head of every station had their own safe, a place where they could keep files that were especially sensitive. Only Waverly and Lisa Rogers had known the combination to the safe in this office. Only Lisa and Napoleon knew it now. 

Napoleon knew that he should have tackled this task first, when he was still fresh, not now when he was exhausted, mentally and physically. But he had wanted to leave this final desecration of Waverly's privacy, of his existence, to the end.

Brushing the dust from his hands and clothes, he slid open the panel hiding the safe and entered the combination. When the tumblers slid in place with a satisfying click, Napoleon slowly opened the door.

He wasn't sure quite what he'd expected to find in Alexander Waverly's safe: a lost diamond, a roll of film explaining all the great mysteries of the world, blackmail material on every person who'd ever annoyed him. With those expectations, the orderly stack of papers and books could only be a disappointment. Reality wasn't nearly as exciting as fantasy.

Napoleon placed the contents of the safe on his desk and went to work sorting through them.

The code books went in the pile to go back into the safe, as did the confidential lists of personal sources. Napoleon had no doubt that, eventually, he would need to call on every one of the men and women on those lists. Some records went into the pile to be shredded. Others went straight into the burn bag that Napoleon was going to deliver to the incinerator personally as soon as he was through here.

Napoleon finished sorting through the papers, and started to replace the contents, when he noticed a small, white envelope lying on the bottom of the safe. He picked it up, and found that it had his name on it.

If he'd been thinking, if he'd been less tired and more suspicious, Napoleon might have guessed what was in that envelope. Might have been able to steel himself when he saw the information it contained, might have had every defense firmly in place. Instead, he merely tore it open.

There was a single piece of paper in the envelope, and on that single piece of paper was one name and address. The name was Illya Kuryakin. The address was on Paterson Street, Madison, Wisconsin.

Napoleon was only dimly aware that he'd crumpled the paper and dropped it to the floor. Even less aware that he'd slumped to the floor himself, his legs collapsed beneath him. One thought kept playing through his mind: he'd known. Alexander Waverly had known where Illya was all this time and had never told him. Worse, Waverly had lied to him. Waverly had always sworn that he had no idea where Illya was, that his partneróex-partner, he deliberately reminded himselfóhad disappeared without a trace.

Over the past three years, he'd had time to begin to come to terms with Illya's leaving, but this was a fresh betrayal, a fresh hurt.

A fresh anger.

The fury he'd felt three years ago came back to him, only this time it had a new focus. This time it was directed at the mentor he'd lost, the only man, apart from his partner, that he'd ever trusted without exception.

The rage burned through him. He wanted to break things, to tear apart the office he'd just spent all day organizing, to smash it all down. But he couldn't. Couldn't work up the energy to turn over furniture, or even punch a decent sized hole in the wall. Could only sit on the floor and think about the man who'd been his teacher. Think about the man who'd been his lover and his friend.

Both of them had lied.

Both of them had left.

The rage evaporated as quickly as if had appeared, leaving only the grief that had never entirely disappeared. Would always be with him.

He reached over and grabbed the crumpled piece of paper from where it had rolled under his desk. Handling it as carefully as a scholar with the Dead Sea scrolls, he smoothed out the creases as best he could.

He sat and stared at the words on that page until they made no more sense than a random group of characters, and tried to come to a decision

* * *

_Sunday, October 5, 1975_

Illya sat at a booth and watched the entrance of the Kiev with as much vigilance as an Enforcement agent on a mission. But this time the mission wasn't to track down a new Thrush weapon or prevent an assassination. This time, he was only meeting two old friends for breakfast.

He'd promised April that he would meet with her and Mark while he was in New York and he was keeping that promise. But he did not want to face the kind of temptation that he had at the funeral, did not want to have friends insist that he stay longer, that he meet with Napoleon, so he'd planned carefully. He'd only agreed to meet them today, his last day in the city. And he had told them that his flight left hours earlier than it did, so that he could escape if things becameÖdifficult.

Illya unobtrusively examined the other patrons of the restaurant, looking for possible threats more out of habit than from any real expectation of danger. He wondered how long it would take him to get out of the routine of searching for risk each time he walked into a new situation, then decided that perhaps it would be safer never to get out of the habit at all. He'd already run into one Thrush operative with a grudge against him. There were sure to be a few others in the world.

The Kiev had always been a place favoured by students and artists, and it appeared that not much had changed. There were several haggard young people whom he would guess were NYU students just coming off after, what did his students call it, ah yes, ëpulling an all-nighter.' And there was a couple in their late twenties arguing about the contribution of Marcel Duchamp's oeuvre to the world of art. Illya had to smile, listening to them. The young man was clearly an idiot, but the woman was making some good points.

He took a sip of his coffee, turning back to the door just in time to see April Dancer and Mark Slate enter the diner.

They both saw him immediately and came over to the booth. He rose to greet them.

"Illya," April said with obvious pleasure. She hugged him firmly, and he let her take that liberty. Mark he hugged as well, the younger man's English reserve long since worn away by his American partner and Russian friend.

April took a seat on Illya's side of the booth, while Mark sat across from them.

The first thing April did was to punch him, hard, on the arm. That was one threat he had not been expecting.

"Ow," he said, too surprised to mount a more witty response. He would have a bruise tomorrow.

"That's for putting us off till your last day in New York," April said with conviction.

"Remind me never to provoke you again," he said, still rubbing the sore spot.

"I've learned not to upset her," Mark said. "She's got a mean right crÖOw." Mark broke off and bent down to rub his shin.

"And a meaner kick," April said with a smug grin.

Mark looked over at Illya and shrugged. "We don't have a chance, mate."

"I wouldn't dream of taking on your partner."

April only rolled her eyes. "I don't know why I put up with you two."

"Because we're charming and handsome and urbane," Mark said.

"And modest, apparently," Illya added.

April looked at them both, then threw her head back and laughed.

"Oh, Illya, I have missed you."

"I've missed you, as well." He looked over at Mark. "Both of you. None of the faculty at the university are nearly so.." He searched for the right word.

"Infuriating?" Mark tried.

"Interfering?" April added.

"All of the above. And more," Illya concluded.

At that moment, their waitress arrived and took their orders. For a minute they concerned themselves with eggs and pancakes and bacon before getting down to the serious business of catching up. Illya told them about his students and colleagues and the house he'd rented since he'd last seen them. They told him about the silly assignments gone wrong and avoided telling him about the top-secret material he was no longer privileged to. 

They all shared anecdotes about Alexander Waverly. They told stories about facing his fury when an assignment had gone wrong and about being left out to dry, or as Waverly would have had it, ëleft to their own resources' when an assignment became unexpectedly perilous. And most of all, there were the stories about Waverly coming through, showing his loyalty to his people, bailing them out of hopeless situations.

In spite of himself, Illya found himself relaxing. He didn't have to pretend with April and Mark, didn't have to play the role of the innocuous, absent-minded, occasionally sarcastic physics professor. Didn't have to pretend that he had no knowledge of weapons and explosives and surveillance techniques. He could, for this precious, short time, be himself.

And that was his undoing.

He was too comfortable, too relaxed, too much himself. He asked about the one person he shouldn't have.

"How is Napoleon?"

Even as the words left his mouth, he wished he could take them back. They could solve nothing, could only make him feel worse. And yet he had to ask, was compelled to ask, couldn't not ask.

Neither April nor Mark answered right away. Instead, they looked at each other, sharing the wordless communication that only partners and old married couples seemed to possess. It was Mark who finally answered, and then only after he'd taken a swallow of his coffee.

"He's fine." There was only a minute hesitation between the words. Hardly noticeable, unless you were trained to observe such small slips.

"Truly?"

There was a longer hesitation this time.

"He's as fine as can be expected," April said. "As fine as you are," she added, twisting the knife. "And how are you, Illya?" She held up her had before he could answer. "But I forgot: you're just fine."

There was a bitterness, a frustration, in April's voice, in her eyes, that was still strong, even after three years of this same argument. Illya ducked his head down in quite unexpected pain and looked down at his coffee. He took a deep swallow of the dark, bitter liquid and stamped down hard on the emotions that threatened to overcome him.

"I just wanted to know how he was," Illya said.

"You want to know how he is? Go see him." Three little words. They sounded so easy, and they were so impossible.

"I can't," he said through clenched teeth.

"You can and you should."

Illya just shook his head emphatically, unwilling to trust his own voice.

"Fine, you hide in Madison. You want to know how he is? He works too hard and does too much. He takes everything far too seriously. He probably drinks a little bit more than he should. He doesn't have as much time for old friends and I doubt he has time to make new friends. That's how he is."

"April," Mark hissed out her name like a warning.

"No, Mark. Someone has to tell him." Illya had never heard such steel in April's voice. She directed her attention back at Illya. "You want to know what you've cost Napoleon? You go see him. Today. Before you leave."

A long silence stretched out between them, a silence in which Illya could hear the patrons at other tables give orders, have conversations, get on with their lives.

That was what he needed to do: get on with his life. He needed to let Napoleon get on with his. And right this minute, he needed to convince his friends.

"This has to stop," Illya said quietly. He took a deep breath, then finally looked up at his friends, made direct eye contact so they could see how serious he was. "I can't keep having this argument over and over. It has to end. Now." He took another deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. "Wounds can't heal if you keep worrying at them. I need to let this wound heal." He pulled out his wallet and threw enough money for his meal and a generous tip down on the table. He made a show of looking at his watch, though he had no idea what time it showed. "I have to leave now to get to the airport. If you'll excuse meÖ"

Biting at her lip, April let him out of the booth in silence. Not knowing what else he could say, he turned to leave.

"Illya," Mark said, his voice shaking slightly with emotion.

In spite of his resolve, Illya turned back to his friends.

"Will you stay in touch?"

"It's up to you. If you can avoid talking about, well, all of it, I would be pleased if you stayed in touch." He smiled slightly. "You could even come visit. The new house has two proper guest rooms." The smile faded. "But I cannot do this any more."

Without another word, he left. He hailed a cab, hoping that this would not be the last time he saw his friends. He did not want his last memory of them to be April's anger and Mark's hurt. But he had told them the truth. He could not continue to dwell on his decision, couldn't keep second-guessing himself. It was done, and he had to live with the consequences.

As he directed the driver to LaGuardia, he tried to take comfort in the short moments of friendship, of feeling himself.

It wasn't much, but it was all he was left with.

* * *

_Thursday, November 3, 1975_

In the end, he never really had a choice.

As soon as he had a location for Illya, it had been inevitable that he would make his way there.

But he hadn't done it right away.

At first he had only kept the address locked away in his desk, where it was safe from prying eyes and himself. Next, he had sent a Section 3 agent to Madison to check on Illya's routine and his safety, but only after he had done the same for several other high profile, retired agents. He didn't want it said that his actions were motivated by personal feelings, even if they were.

Finally, he had booked the Command jet to fly to Madison. Just for a day.

He had arrived in the morning and spent the day wandering the city, investigating the place where Illya had chosen to settle down. That he had done so alone, without even one bodyguard, had made his CEA furious, but he'd pulled rank and got his own way. Armed with the schedule of Illya's usual activities for the day provided by his surveillance agent, Napoleon made sure that there was no unexpected meeting between himself and his former partner.

Walking up State Street, through the campus of the university and around the lakes that dotted the city, Napoleon could understand why Illya would find himself at home here. Madison didn't have the variety of New York, but the city had a combination of Midwest charm and campus bohemianism that he could see Illya enjoying.

When the sun began to set and a slight chill began to catch in the air, he made his way to the neighbourhood where Illya was living. It was long past the time when he should find Professor Kuryakin at home.

Even though he had been warned, he did a double-take when he saw the house that Illya was renting. It was on the east side of the city, generally considered to be slightly more radical than the more genteel west side, and thus exactly where Illya would have settled. It was also purple. That was not something he would have expected. Renting a purple house seemed a more whimsical action than usual for Illya. But then, Illya had always delighted in confounding everyone's expectations, including those of Napoleon Solo.

He stood on the corner of Illya's street, a few doors down from his house. Now that he was here, he had no idea what he intended to do. When he had boarded the plane, he had fully intended to boldly knock on the door and confront his partner. Doubt was starting to nibble away at his plans.

He had no way of knowing what Illya's reaction would be. Pleasure. Acceptance. Anger. Rejection. Any of those was possible. Any of them was likely. And it was equally likely that, knowing he'd been found, Illya would find another place to hide in, another place to slip away to. And this time he would leave no trail, would leave no convenient file for Napoleon to find and follow. If he ran this time, Napoleon knew he truly would never see him again. 

To ring the bell, or not. He felt as conflicted as Hamlet, and as immobilized. 

When the last of the day's light faded from the sky and a lamp snapped on in what must be Illya's dining room, Napoleon's paralysis lifted.

Illya belonged here. He did not.

He didn't want to risk having Illya run again, risk driving him from another home, another place he had begun to find comfortable. Didn't want to risk having Illya live in a place that was not nearly as safe as an American university town.

He had to make a break, finally and absolutely. He had to move on, and to let Illya do the same. He must mourn the loss of his old life, of Illya's friendship and love, even as he'd mourned Waverly's death, but then he had to stop and continue his life.

He owed that much to both of them.

But he also owed it to Illya to make sure that he continued to be safe. He vowed to begin a system to monitor, quietly, unobtrusively, the lives of former agents, to make sure they were not targeted, not harmed. 

Putting his hands into the pockets of his top coat, Napoleon turned away from the purple house on Paterson Street.

* * *

Illya was sitting at his dining room table when it happened.

He was grading a mid-term exam, despairing, as always, at the students who couldn't quite understand Maxwell's equations. Taking comfort, as always, in the students who had soaked up all he had taught and were ready for more. 

Dusk had come and gone and the light had faded past the point where he could see by squinting. He stood up and turned on the light switch, and was struck by a shiver down his spine.

He was being watched.

That conclusion might have been considered fanciful by his university colleagues, and probably been laughed at by his students, but it was based on an instinct that had kept him alive as a field agent for years. He would trust it again.

He approached the front window cautiously, from the side, making sure that he could not be seen from outside.

There was no one on the street.

He shook his head, trying to convince himself that perhaps his instinct was faulty, that he was merely imagining things. But when it came right down to it, he had to be sure.

He grabbed the jacket hanging by the door, toed on his sneakers and put his hand on the door knob. He hesitated, slightly, before turning the knob and stepping out on to his porch.

There was no one in front of the house, no one across the street. He walked down the steps, and caught a glimpse, just a glimpse, of a figure turning the corner.

In the dimming light he had only the impression of a dark haired man in a well-cut top coat, but he knew that man, knew him down to his bones.

Napoleon.

His brain screamed at him to move, to run to his former partner, but his feet were immobile, as if his sneakers had been nailed to the porch. Finally, he broke free of his stasis and did run. Flew down the steps and across the street and around the corner.

There was no one there. 

Napoleon, and it must have been Napoleon, had disappeared completely in the gloom of the evening. The streets were utterly deserted.

Everything he had told April, told himself, about getting on with his life, breaking free from the past, shattered into insignificant fragments. He only kept himself from calling out Napoleon's name, from yelling in frustration, from screaming every Russian obscenity he knew, by drawing on the shredded remains of his dignity.

He jogged around the neighbourhood for half an hour, his hopes of catching another glimpse of his former partner flagging all the while. Full darkness found him sitting on the steps of his house, hands clasping his knees.

It wasn't fair. That was the thought he kept coming back to, over and over again. It wasn't fair that just as he had begun to truly accept that the break with Napoleon was irrevocable, the man should come back into his life. Just as it wasn't fair that the man who had given him purpose and a place in the West was now dead. 

He felt moisture in the corner of one eye, and wiped it unthinkingly away, willing the tears to stop before they'd really started. He hadn't cried before this, he wouldn't now. Not even when mourning the life he might have had, if things had been different.

He spent the night on the steps, shivering when the chill of the night became too much for the slight protection of his jacket. 

He told himself he was not waiting in case Napoleon came back. He concentrated his thoughts on saying goodbye, to the Command, to Waverly. And to Napoleon. 

Then, when false light was breaking over the horizon and the birds were beginning to wake, he stood, stretching out joints grown stiff from his vigil.

It was time that he followed his own advice.

It was time to move on.

**Author's Note:**

> Previously published in Relative Secrecy 10.


End file.
